Drug News
Drug may reduce radiation damage
By Sue Mueller
Apr 11, 2008 - 12:53:44 PM

FRIDAGY April 11, 2008 (Foodconsumer.org) -- A study published in the journal Science said a new drug developed by a company known as Cleveland BioLabs Inc may help reduce damaging effects of radiation on healthy cells, Reuters reported Tursday.

Radiation, a carcinogen agent that has been recognized by the U.S government, is commonly used to diagnose and treat diseases particularly cancer.  

But radiation can kill both cancerous and healthy cells and cause mutations in healthy cells potentially leading to carcinogenesis, which makes radiation therapy an undesirable treatment.

The compound known as CBLB502 made from a salmonella protein reportedly protected mice and monkeys from the damaging effects of radiation.

Researchers were cited as saying the drug protected animals' bone marrow and cells in the gut from being damaged by radiation without interfering radiation therapy's effect on cancer.  

Bone marrow is the most sensitive tissue in the body to radiation.  It's known that excessive exposure of it to radiation causes leukemia in cancer patients during a period of 3 to 15 years.

"These tissues fail because these cells choose to commit suicide. Our idea was to block these suicidal intentions," Andrei Gudkov of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Gudkov, who also is affiliated with the drug maker, said, cited by Reuters, that radiation triggers cells to undergo apoptosis or programmed cell death leading to destruction of defective cells.

The programmed cell death mechanism is lacking in the cancer cell and that is why cancer keeps growing indefinitely.

According to Reuters, a single dose of the drug given to the animals shortly prior to radiation therapy significantly prevented animals from being damaged in the sensitive bone marrow and gastrointestinal cells and prolonged their survival.

Protective effects were also observed even when the drug was given one hour after the animals got a dose of radiation.

What the compound did was the drug temporarily and reversely converted normal cells into something resistant to radiation. The effect lasted only in a matter of a couple of hours.

No side effects were reported to be associated with use of the drug.

The study had received $9 million from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The drug may be used to reduce side effects of radiation therapy and also protect people from being damaged or killed by exposure to radiation from an unexpected source.

However, it is unknown whether the drug prevents apoptosis alone or both apoptosis and mutations.  What's scary about radiation is that it causes mutations, the ultimate cause for all types of cancer.